by Kira Barcelo
Alex stood as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar, his hands on his waist and a scowl on his face. “I want all this crap tossed out today, Marta. And you’ll be doing that. I want Rhonda and Orestes to get cracking for today’s service. Then you need to finish cleaning up that area over by the stove and the floors right behind the dishwasher. You didn’t finish cleaning yesterday. You’re not leaving till it’s done today.”
“Ohhh, Carolyn! Make him stop!” Marta stopped to catch her breath in between heaving sobs, her hand placed dramatically over her heart like a soprano about to sing a romantic aria. “Oh, I have to take my pill.”
“Go take your pill, Marta, but be quick about it. And the disinfectant’s back there behind the dishwasher, where you left it yesterday,” Alex reminded her coldly, walking crisply away from her. “I gotta get some coffee.”
Carolyn tried to cast a scolding glance at him, but he’d already stormed out of the kitchen. Marta grabbed hold of her hands.
“Please tell me your brother is coming back,” the chef pleaded. “Please tell me that terrible man isn’t staying. He—he’s the devil! And you’re my boss, not him.”
“Oh, Marta, honey. The devil’s actually probably more reasonable. But I’m afraid Alex is your boss. Just—just do what he tells you, okay? Just throw away all that disgusting stuff in there so we don’t serve something we shouldn’t by accident. Somebody could get sick.”
And I could get sued for everything I own. Carolyn pushed a sudden wave of resentment away, along with the urge to ask Marta why she hadn’t taken better care of things, particularly in light of how much money the restaurant and Carolyn herself had been losing.
“And clean up. Okay? Just do what he tells you,” she concluded.
“But—you’re my boss!” Marta protested. “He doesn’t belong here. You know I can’t do everything. And those two, Rhonda and Orestes, they’re just jealous because I’m in charge and they’re not.”
“Well, I—I don’t know about that, Marta. Honey, just please cut me a break here, okay? You know you’re my friend, you know I love ya to pieces—”
“Carolyn.”
She looked up to see Alex leaning in through the doorway, a cup of hot black coffee in his hand.
“The menu,” was all he said.
“Yes, I know. I’m just talking to Marta—”
“You talked to her. Now she needs to get to work. And you and I have already lost over an hour. You and me out in the kitchen. Now, please. Don’t keep me waiting again.”
“Alex, I said I’ll be there in—”
Damn! Stubborn jerk. He’d disappeared through the door abruptly, leaving her with her words in her mouth. Couldn’t he see that they had a crisis? Weren’t employee relations as important as some stupid old menu?
That was bound to be a bone of contention between them. She was a people person; Alex was about as much a people person as the Barbary Pirates. Come to think of it, she could kinda see him pillaging and burning villages, with his only concern being keeping the pirates on schedule.
She smiled at Marta and patted her head. “Do me a favor, honey, okay? Be a sweetheart and do everything Alex told you to do. And don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything. Okay?”
* * *
“You may be a good friend to that woman, Carolyn. In fact, I know you are. But your brother’s right: Marta DeLong is a little snake. With friends with her, you don’t need any enemies. And she’s going to run your business, your baby, into the ground.”
Alex stopped, seeing Carolyn’s prickly reaction. He took no pleasure in smashing all her pretty illusions when it came to a woman she considered her friend, but it had to be said. Because he took even less pleasure in watching someone selfishly taking advantage of her.
“You can’t fire her, Alex Stanton. I won’t let you,” she argued from the other side of the desk.
“I don’t intend to. That’s not my place. I didn’t hire her. I’m not the one who should fire her.”
“You know, maybe she’s right. Maybe you are being unfair to her. What did she do to make you dislike her so much, Alex? You only just met her, for heaven’s sake.”
Obviously, she wasn’t going to make this easy for him. Alex sat back in the arm chair and stretched. It had been a long, stressful day for the restaurant, which had only seen about seven customers all day. And one had come in for only a cup of coffee and a slice of cheesecake. He was exhausted, the air in Carolyn’s office was heavy and making him yawn, and she was going to make him be the Bad Guy again.
“Okay, fine. I’ll tell you what happened this morning.” Sitting forward, he went on, “And it’s gonna hurt you, but you’re not leaving me a choice. Before you came in this morning, I came into the kitchen and I overheard her and Orestes talking about me.”
Carolyn curled up on her chair, smirking knowingly at him. “Ah, here it comes. Go on.”
“She didn’t realize I speak Spanish. Well—I understand it enough to know what was being said. She was telling Orestes that she’d gotten over on you for years and she sure as hell wasn’t putting up with my shit, either. Excuse me for the language, but those were her words.”
She didn’t respond right away. “Maybe you don’t understand Spanish as well as you think you do.”
Alex tilted his head to the side and smiled. “Carolyn, c’mon. She also said that if you didn’t protect her from me, after everything she’s done for you—and she didn’t use a very nice term to describe you—she’d say the hell with you, and she’d walk out on you whether there were people out there or not. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Orestes yourself. I did. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
He waited for her response, right away feeling like a heel. She was quiet, fidgeting by doodling on her desk blotter. That was one of her little quirks. That and blowing at her bangs up the side of her mouth when she was frustrated. He’d noticed she did that now and then, and he’d grudgingly found it pretty cute.
Like a lot of things about the gorgeous, if maddening, Carolyn Hammond.
“Well, you were right about one thing. That—that’s hurtful to me,” she confessed.
Alex sighed again. “I’m sorry. You have to do something about her, though. You’re so kind to her, Carolyn, but she doesn’t give a damn about you. You’re drowning here and she’s—it’s like she’s forcing your head deeper under the water.”
“Yeah, but she’s not my only problem.”
“No. But she’s a big part of it.” He waved a hand in the air. “Anyway, you don’t have to decide right now, I guess.”
“Well, good. Because I’m tired and I want to go home. It’s been a long day.”
“Yes, it has. You don’t want to talk about our menu?”
“It’s shaping up. Maybe you were right about it needing to be pared down and updated. There? You happy?” She stepped out from behind her desk, shutting off the electric rotating fan on top of the old-fashioned metal file cabinet and grabbing her purse. “I’m tired. I want to go home.”
“All right. I guess we can talk tomorrow. Oh—although there’s one more thing I need to take care of.”
“I knew there would be!” She whirled around to face him, one hand flying to her hip. “What’s that?”
“A little matter of sixty-seven minutes. Sixty-seven minutes that you spent everywhere else except here, showing me how much this restaurant means to you. Sixty-seven minutes that you owe to the Beachside Bistro, Jamie, Rhonda, Orestes and Hailey. And me. And yourself.”
“Those happen to be sixty-seven minutes that I can’t get back.”
“My point, exactly.”
“So I’ll just be better about it tomorrow. Okay? I’ll be here at seven tomorrow.”
“Yes, you most certainly will get your little behind here at seven tomorrow. You won’t be late a second time, Carolyn. Because I’m gonna give you a little reminder that’ll be a lot more effective than an alarm clock.”
“Maybe I can be late a second ti
me. Maybe I’ll be even later tomorrow. I may want to go to my yoga class.”
Alex’s head shot up. He kept his temper in check, even seeing her glaring at him in that sexy but challenging way of hers. He’d tried to be patient and he’d put off that moment all day long, but he wasn’t putting it off any longer.
“You will be here tomorrow, not at yoga. Or at the gym. Or at the tanning salon. Here. And you’ll be here bright and early and ready to work, even if you have to stand all day long. I can tell you you’ll be too sore to sit comfortably.”
Carolyn huffed and began to protest, but he’d been pushed far enough. Catching her by her waist, Alex remained seated and draped her over his lap. With the space in that little office so limited, this wasn’t going to be easy, but that was all right. He hadn’t gotten through forty-one years that for the most part hadn’t been smooth sailing without learning a bit of resourcefulness.
Alex found that her legs were too close to the desk, making it possible for her to kick at it and propel herself off his lap, so he wrapped one of his legs around both of hers to prevent that. That worked out even better, because with her legs pinned and his left hand anchoring her waist to his lap, her bottom had a lot less mobility to wriggle around.
“Noooo! You can’t do this! Oh…” She wailed and banged her closed fists against his legs. “You can’t do this, Alex! You can’t spank me! Stop! Let me up!”
“Because I’m a gentleman, I’ll remind you that Jamie’s still downstairs. He hasn’t left.” Alex smirked when Carolyn looked back over her shoulder at him. “You don’t want him whispering to the others tomorrow that he heard you getting spanked for being a naughty girl and coming in late yet again, do you?”
“You—you, oh, Marta’s right! You are the devil!” She began to squirm and continued hitting his legs with his fists.
“Ouch! That’s not very nice. I have feelings, too, you know. Okay, Carolyn, that’s enough with you hitting my legs.” For emphasis, Alex brought his hand down in one loud smack onto the seat of those tight black Capris. He heard her give a startled gasp and her rear end jumped, but her fists stopped. “That was a warning shot. It doesn’t count. Now we agreed on a spank for every minute you were late—”
“Oh, shit! You were serious about that? Shit, shit, shit!”
“Carolyn, honey, I was serious as all get-out. Now you have sixty-seven coming to you. That’s one hell of a spanking. And if you don’t watch your language, I’ll add another ten to that.”
“Ohhhh! You—you can’t do this to me. I’ll tell my brother!”
“Sixty-seven. I’ll do the counting.” This was going to absolutely kill his hand. Alex tossed his arm high in the air, aiming the back of his big hand straight at her buttcheeks, then stopped. “Ah, it’s been a long time since I’ve done this. I almost forgot one thing.”
“You are not spanking me sixty-seven times, you big bully!” she hissed through clenched teeth. “You—noooo!”
“Oh, now, I know Jamie heard that one. If he comes up here and knocks at the door to make sure you’re all right, you don’t want me to have to tell him I’m spanking his boss, now do you?”
Evidently the lady had a problem with him yanking down both those fancy pants and her even fancier panties. Alex took his time to admire them. Hmmm. Red. Lacy. Naughty. What a girl!
That chubby little ass was even more adorable. She was a cutie, that Carolyn. Unfortunately, she was a cutie in dire need of having someone getting her to straighten up and fly right. That meant getting her butt blistered with a good spanking.
And he was just the man to administer that spanking.
She lifted her head and sputtered, “Alex Stanton, you spank me and I will drive my Mustang through that door and I will run you down!”
“Oh, geez, you’re threatening me with bodily harm now? I’m surprised at you, Carolyn. I’m also tagging on another twenty spanks for that, so you’ll be getting eighty-seven altogether.”
“Nooooo! I take it back! I didn’t mean it! You know I wouldn’t do that, Alex! I’m just—owwwwwwwww!”
Eighty-seven spanks. Well, hell, that was a tall order. Silently, he counted out the first thirty-five, which he delivered with rapid-fire precision. He wasn’t sure if Jamie was downstairs or not, though he’d seen him just before he’d gone up to Carolyn’s office to tidy up details once the last customer had left and the doors had closed. But he could tell she was keeping her yelping and hollering down to a minimum, which couldn’t have been easy, judging by how warm her cheeks felt and how they were fast turning from girly-pink to as red as her panties.
After raining down another ten, he rested to catch his breath, laying his hand across her bottom.
“Ohhh—I’m glad that’s over!” she wailed.
“Over? Honey, we’re only about halfway through.” Alex shook his hand. “Man, my hand’s killing me.”
“Your hand’s killing you?” Carolyn squirmed again, trying to wriggle free off his lap. “Good! I hope it does! And I’m going to sleep until noon tomorrow! I won’t walk in here until—ouch! Owwwww! Stoooooop!”
Twenty more. He made sure there wasn’t a spot on that sexy tail that wasn’t blazing. Alex was fairly certain that, no matter how sore his hand was, Carolyn must have felt like she’d sat on a hive of angry bees, every last one of them aiming its stinger straight at either one of two rounded, swollen globes.
“Okay, okay, you win! No more! No more!” She reached back with her arm to protect her throbbing behind, but he couldn’t have that. He couldn’t risk accidentally injuring her arm, so he pinned her wrist to her lower back and silently counted out another seven as Carolyn promised him the moon. “Ohhhhhh, I’ll be here at six-thirty! Pleeeease, Alex, I’ll sleep in the dining room if you want! I’ll never be late again!”
Twenty more. It looked like he’d finally gotten through to her. He’d been counting to himself, so perhaps he could let her think she’d gotten all eighty-seven? His hand was throbbing almost as badly as her derriere. But he had to be stern with her, he had to teach her a lesson, no matter how painful it was for her to learn.
“Alex…” She looked back over her shoulder at him once more. “I won’t ever be late again. Pleeeeeeeeeeease stop spanking me.”
He licked his lips, looking back down at her pensively. He was tempted to stop right there…pull her to her feet…then sit her on his lap and hold her for a while until she calmed down.
He was tempted. That lasted all of a few moments. Then he forged forward, knowing that if he gave in, she wouldn’t take him seriously next time. That would be a disaster, with so much at stake.
“There’s twenty more to go. And then we’re done.”
“Twenty! Ohhhh, Alex!” she groaned and turned back around. “I’ll be good. I won’t be late again. And I won’t curse, either.”
“Yeah, and you won’t take this place seriously—”
“I will, I will! I promise!”
Sixty-seven spanks. That was the original agreement anyway. Just in case he looked around the office for something hard and sturdy that would give his hand a much-needed break. A wooden ruler, a metal spatula that had strayed from the kitchen, anything.
He looked back down at her bottom. Tattooed across it were big, angry, red handprints. She wasn’t going to be sitting comfortably that night, if at all, that was for damn sure.
“Okay. I’m gonna let you go this time,” he said. “But if you test me again tomorrow, Carolyn, if you come in here late, I’ll give you that last twenty on top of however more minutes you’ve piled on.”
“That won’t happen. I’ll be here early. At seven. Or before. Pleeeeeease, Alex! I promise.”
“Oh…all right.”
He swung his leg around, releasing her legs first, then allowed her to scramble to her feet. Her face, from the embarrassment, was as red as her other end. Alex watched as she gingerly pulled those panties and stretchy pants back up over her inflamed bottom. Even that drew an “Owww!” uttered under her b
reath. Carolyn didn’t face him as she grabbed her purse and headed to the door, trying to rub the sting out of her well-spanked bottom with each step.
“Oh—and, Alex…” She stopped at the door but didn’t look at him. She stammered, a little cry in her voice. “I do care about this place. And about the people who work here who depend on me. I—I almost try to avoid getting here. Because I know I’m just going to fail and I’m going to let everyone and myself down.”
He softened. “I know that’s not going to happen, Carolyn. But start showing up, okay? You show up, I show up. I’m gonna be there for you, but you need to be here, too. All of you has to be here, every part of your heart and your passion. Now…you rest. We have a big day tomorrow.”
At last she looked at him. She only nodded and then hurried out. Luckily, too soon, before he could fly across the room and give in to the urge to kiss her.
There was a little more at stake, he realized, then just an old restaurant.
Chapter Three
“You like it, Jamie? Personally, I can’t wait to taste stuff off this new menu. The food’s gonna rock!”
“I don’t know why Carolyn didn’t do that with the menu before. But you know, Alex is amazing. He even got her to come in early this morning. Has that ever happened since you’ve been here? The guy must be a magician!”
Carolyn smiled to herself, overhearing the lively conversation between her head waiter and Hailey. The restaurant would be opening for lunch in another hour, though she would miss it. She and her business partner had been working feverishly since they’d arrived, putting the finishing touches on the new menu. They would be bringing the finished product to the printers’ office that morning, and then they were headed to the local farmer’s market to shop for the Beachside Bistro.
So Hailey and Jamie thought that Alex Stanton was a magician for getting her in there even before seven in the morning that day. She didn’t know what to make of him, really. Even more confusing to her was her reaction to being tossed across his knee and having her bottom soundly spanked. She hadn’t gone in there that morning still angry and giving him the cold shoulder or reading him the riot act. Carolyn had tried to avoid meeting his gaze, however, feeling the heat rising in her face as she blushed.